Postwar Effects of the American Civil War
The American Civil War was, undoubtedly, a truly revolutionary period in the history of the United States. Fueled by the drastic differences in the contrasting cultures and ways of life of North and South, the war was one of great stature; one whose effects would not be accurately understood until years after its conclusion. ... From abolishment of the institution of slavery to the legislation of the Republican controlled Congress promoting western settlement, much change in all aspects of American life was brought about by the terrible yet inevitable Civil War. The South was the hardest hit economically by the tragic affects of the bitter war. It had come out from the war maimed and tattered with a devastated countryside, a downtrodden population, left with the plague of economic instability. ... Politically, the Civil War had dealt the South a somewhat better hand than it had for other aspects of change. ... Yet the seemingly perpetual hatred that had sprung from the cultural and political differences in the North and the South during the war had seemed to be forgotten so quickly. ... In the North, life flourished from the industrial strength that had been present there prior to the war.